Sometimes, I don't get things.

It's true.

Ask my wife. I don't know how many times she's said to me, "You just don't get it, do you?"

But I really don't get what the U.S. Supreme Court was thinking with this week's ruling on a property rights case.

I don't pretend to possess the same level of legal expertise as our Supreme Court justices, but to me the property rights thing was just plain wrong.

Wilhelmina Dery lives in New London, Conn. In fact, she lived in the house where her family lived for more than 100 years. She was born in the house and lived there with her husband for 59 years.

One would think she could feel secure in her home. One would be wrong.

Along comes Pfizer Inc. to propose a new, 90-acre development that would employ, literally, thousands of people.

Of course, woe the dozens of families in a working-class neighborhood - including Wilhelmina - who were in the way.

New London's economy has been a little flat lately so the city council voted to use eminent domain to uproot the residents from the homes and transfer the property to the developer.

The ensuing eight years of legal challenges ended Thursday and the residents - including Wilhelmina - wound up on the short end of the stick.

In a 5-4 ruling, the highest court in the land said it's cool for cities - acting at the behest of unelected, private, non-profit development commissions - to settle on a price, seize your home and bulldoze it to make way for shopping malls, office complexes, apartments, condos or other private developments. All in the name of generating tax revenue.

This is shocking to me.

If I was the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, I would feel as if I was just kicked in the groin.

That's the part of the Constitution that says that private property can't "be taken for public use without just compensation."

The rub here is that pesky little word "public."

Eminent domain has been around a long time. The argument over government seizure of private property for public use - schools, roads, etc. - was settled long ago.

There also have been cases where property was so blighted it was creating a public hazard. In those cases the property was made public simply for the good of the public, rather than a specific public use.

Please note that in all previous cases, the land wound up in the public domain.

It has always been held that government could not seize property from a private entity and turn it over to another private entity.

And that, precisely, is what happened here.

Seems the court decided to redefine the intent of the phrase "public use."

"Public use" would seem pretty simple to define. It's cut-and-dry for me. You know, used by a public entity - a state, a municipality.

But I guess this court thinks the founders meant "public interest."

Because if Pfizer's development is a "public use" of that land in New London, I'm gonna make the cut at the British Open.

Certainly, destroying a working class neighborhood and erecting a pharmaceutical research facility, office complex, restaurants, shops, hotel and health club will generate jobs and tax dollars.

Certainly the move could be construed as in the "public interest."

But "public use"?

No way.

I fully agree with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who wrote a scathing dissent:

'Today the Court abandons this long-held, basic limitation on government power. Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner ... who will use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the public in the process.'

Indeed.

Thursday was a sad day for property owners in this country. [[In-content Ad]]